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One of my drag racing mottos is: "Any day at the track that I can drive away in the same car is a good day". So it was a very good day, since it was a 100 mile round trip that was a nice cruise in the beast (the car was driven to, and from, the track).
My hopes were high for a mid 10 pass given http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106520 , but it didn't quite happen that way.
I got one sloppy 10.97 e.t. at 124.94 mph in a squirrelly pass that revealed several issues. My line lock didn't engage so I did not get a good burnout, only a 1.73 second 60' time vs. previous 1.57 60' times. The car did not launch straight and required a lot of steering corrections all the way down the track, I even short shifted into third to straighten it up a bit. My thoughts going down the track was that maybe 12 psi was too low for my 9" tread width E.T. Streets. Back in the pits one of my buddies who was filming the launch said that he heard a couple of mechanical "clanging" sounds from my car when it launched. Everything looked good underhood, so we jacked up the back end. We found several problems. My bolt on H.R. Parts N Stuff anti roll bar had twisted its axles mounts backward. The driver's side was only twisted an inch or so, the passenger side was ~ 3" twisted. It wasn't that it hadn't been torqued down, because the bolts were all tight. Maybe it didn't like the link bars to the frame not being perpendicular to the ground. I should have replaced the link bars with something shorter to suit the underbody frame on my El Camino. H.R. Parts N Stuff had told me I was the first '65 ElCamino to use their bar. While the car was up in the air we also discovered that when my rear suspension was at full extension (when my car launches both the front and rear of the car lift as it pushes the rear axle toward the ground) that my driveshaft is touching the "X" in my new exhaust crossover. So now we knew where the two clanging noises came from and why the car handled so badly.
I'll be back at the track on November 12th, and after correcting the issues we found I hope to see mid 10's in the upper 120's.
Thomas
My hopes were high for a mid 10 pass given http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106520 , but it didn't quite happen that way.
I got one sloppy 10.97 e.t. at 124.94 mph in a squirrelly pass that revealed several issues. My line lock didn't engage so I did not get a good burnout, only a 1.73 second 60' time vs. previous 1.57 60' times. The car did not launch straight and required a lot of steering corrections all the way down the track, I even short shifted into third to straighten it up a bit. My thoughts going down the track was that maybe 12 psi was too low for my 9" tread width E.T. Streets. Back in the pits one of my buddies who was filming the launch said that he heard a couple of mechanical "clanging" sounds from my car when it launched. Everything looked good underhood, so we jacked up the back end. We found several problems. My bolt on H.R. Parts N Stuff anti roll bar had twisted its axles mounts backward. The driver's side was only twisted an inch or so, the passenger side was ~ 3" twisted. It wasn't that it hadn't been torqued down, because the bolts were all tight. Maybe it didn't like the link bars to the frame not being perpendicular to the ground. I should have replaced the link bars with something shorter to suit the underbody frame on my El Camino. H.R. Parts N Stuff had told me I was the first '65 ElCamino to use their bar. While the car was up in the air we also discovered that when my rear suspension was at full extension (when my car launches both the front and rear of the car lift as it pushes the rear axle toward the ground) that my driveshaft is touching the "X" in my new exhaust crossover. So now we knew where the two clanging noises came from and why the car handled so badly.
I'll be back at the track on November 12th, and after correcting the issues we found I hope to see mid 10's in the upper 120's.
Thomas
